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6 jui 2017 · This article presents a case study which aims at analyzing the to a group of twelve learners learning English as a foreign language at a

English Language Teaching; Vol. 10, No. 7; 2017

ISSN 1916-4742 E-ISSN 1916-4750

Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education 123
How Does the First Language Have an Influence on Language Learning? A Case study in an English ESL Classroom

Yanilis Romero

1,2 & Milton Pájaro Manjarres 1,2 1 Institución Educativa Antonia Santos, Montería, Córdoba, Colombia 2 Universidad de Córdoba, Montería, Córdoba, Colombia

Correspondence: Milton Pájaro Manjarres, Transversal 12 • 1-11 Barrio Galilea, Montería, Córdoba, Colombia.

Tel: 301-735-7916. E-mail: miltonpama@gmail.com

Received: March 7, 2017 Accepted: June 2, 2017 Online Published: June 6, 2017 doi: 10.5539/elt.v10n7p123 URL: http://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v10n7p123

Abstract

This article presents a case study which aims at analyzing the influence that the first language has on the learning

of a foreign language. This research was conducted in an ESL classroom from a Language Center in England and

was carried out with a Saudi Arabian student during a two-month period. In order to conduct this research,

theoretical support about contrastive analysis (CA) and error analysis (EA) were taken into account. The findings

of this case study suggested that CA and EA are effective ways to study and understand how the first language

(L1) of a learner might have an influence on the learning process in a foreign language. In this particular case

study, it was found that this Saudi Ar abian learner had a better performance in receptive skills; there were some

evidences of U shape learning in this learner and also it was noticed that his handwriting and the use of

punctuation marks although good, they needed some improvement. Keywords: contrastive analysis, error analysis, case study, native language

1. Introduction

Perspectives on language learning and teaching bring a wide range of important aspects that need to be

considered; some of them include culture and native language. These two features play an important role that

might be overseen once language teachers start instructing. The first language or L1 (regardless of the country)

becomes the first source for a learner to understand how a language works, specially to young learners who are

in the concrete operation phase, as they tend to monitor how they acquire and learn foreign languages.

Interestingly, the learning of foreign languages helps students to understand their native one, and they resort to

their schemes of L1 to relate to the L2. In this sense, it is relevant to point the importance of students' first

language when learning a foreign or second language.

Different researchers, such as Kramsch (1993), Byram and Grundy (2003), and Pulverness (2003) have recently

studied the relationship that exists between culture and language learning. Holmes cited in Byram and Grundy

(2003) for instance shows how culture is encoded in the conceptual metaphors speakers of a language are

convinced of. In other words, these encodings are not equal for all lan guages and for this reason, language instructors need to

be aware of this situation in order to understand how the students learn, depending on the place they come from

and the language they have as mother tongue.

This paper presents a case study carried out by two English Teachers with a Saudi Arabian student who belonged

to a group of twelve learners learning English as a foreign language at a language institute in Southampton,

England. Students' age range from 15 to 20.

The research group asked for a volunteer and explained the purpose of the study having as a result a Saudi Arabian student who volunteered to be part of the study.

This study had the purpose of conducting a Contrastive Analysis (CA) about the language learning process

developed by the learner chosen in order to create a Language Learner Profile (LLP) based on the data collected.

The purpose of all this is to help the student to do better at his language learning process. elt.ccsenet.org English Language Teaching Vol. 10, No. 7; 2017 124

After identifying different needs, wants and lacks in this Saudi Arabian Learner, the researchers created a set of

activities to help the learner cope with skills such as reading and listening. The importance of this piece of

research is intended to raise awareness about a major inquiry underlying the teaching process dealing with

planning, a phase in which instructors need to consider the heterogeneity of the target audience and the

complexity of each students' needs.

1.1 How Does the First Language Have an Influence over the Learning of a New Language?

Language is essential if we want that habits, institutions and beliefs acquire the meaning of what we call culture.

In fact, these aspects must have meaning to become culture. According to Kramsch (2013) language, not seen as

a linguistic system, but seen in context is: "a coherent symbolic system for making meaning" (Kramsch, 2013:

62). In this sense, we cannot separate the study of language and language learning from culture and the context

that surrounds the learner, especially when we refer to the learning of a foreign language.

Besides culture, the first language (L1) of a learner might have an influence over foreign language learning,

either by acting as a source for the learner to understand how the language works when the first language and the

foreign language are similar (transfer), or by being a factor of interference if the two languages are very different

(negative transfer) (Celaya, M., n.d).

Although some authors such as Krashen (1982) and Dulay and Burt (1974) claim that the process of learning the

L2 is similar to the one of learning the L1, some researchers like: Kellerman and Sharwood-Smith (1986) use the

term "Crosslinguistic influence" to refer to aspects of language learning such as: transfer, avoidance and

borrowing renewing the ideas of transference that appeared in the 50`s and 60´s giving some support to the ideas

stated by Lado (1957) who stays that: "individuals tend to transfer the forms and meanings (...) of their native

language and culture to the foreign language and culture" (Lado, 1957 cited in Celaya, n.d. :1)

The following case study presents an analysis on how the first language of a Saudi Arabian student learning

English had an influence over his language learning process. The purpose of this analysis was to show English

teachers how having an understanding of the influence that the L1 has over the learning of a second language can

help to select better teaching materials, prepare more suitable lessons and give more effective instructions to our

students

1.2 Contrastive Analysis

One of the key aspects that needs to be considered when talking about the influence that the L1 has over the

learning of a foreign language is contrastive analysis (CA). According to Johansson (2008) contrastive analysis

can be defined as: "the systematic comparison between two or more languages, with the aim of describing their

similarities and differences". (p. 9) This kind of analysis usually has a pedagogical purpose and it is usually

carried out to have better descriptions of the learners' performance and select better teaching materials for the

learners. When someone is learning a foreign language, it is common to make mistakes in pronunciation or

grammar as a result of the interference of the first language; it is here where CA is important because it allows

the teacher and the learner to be aware of the difference that exist between two languages in order to learn the

correct use of the foreign one.

2. Methodology

2.1 The Case Study

Different authors have defined case studies in different ways depending on their background as researchers.

Merriam (1988) for instance states that: "Case study can be defined as an intensive, holistic description and

analysis of a single entity, phenomenon, or social unit. Case studies are particularistic, descriptive, and heuristic

and rely heavily on inductive reasoning in handling multiple data sources" (p. 16). One of the key aspects in this

definition is the fact that the phenomenon is studied in context. Case studies are centered on description,

inference and interpretation, rather than on a formal experiment where the variables are controlled and

manipulated.

This case study particularly examines and analyses in detail the different strengths, weaknesses and challenges

faced by a Saudi Arabian who studies English as a foreign language at an English language school in

Southampton. This study helps teachers to raise awareness of individual differences among learners. Having a

clear understanding about the characteristics of language learners allows teachers to reflect about the language

needs of foreign students when preparing lessons and selecting teaching materials to effectively teach and guide

them. elt.ccsenet.org English Language Teaching Vol. 10, No. 7; 2017 125

2.2 Participants

The participant for this case study was a nineteen-year-old male from Saudi Arabia who was learning English at

a Language Centre in England. This learner had been studying English for 2 months by the time this study was

carried out. His plan was to finish the English course in six months because he needed the language for further

education. He wanted to become a physiotherapist. His current English level by the time this case study took

place was A 2.1 as it was revealed by the Quick Placement Test administered in the English institute at the

beginning of the course. It is significant to highlight that the learner came just to study English, his economic

background was good and his parents live in Saudi Arabia in the urban area of Makah city.

2.3 Data Collection

The data for this study was collected in a two-month period. During this time, an English language learner was

selected to carry out different stages to determine what he needed to become a successful English language

learner. This study was executed in two phases: the first one was called the discovery stage and the second one

entitled action plan. The former was comprised by four diagnostic tasks: speaking, reading, writing and a

listening one. All of them designed under careful regards of the participant's language level in that moment. In

the second phase the researchers proposed an action plan and a series of one-to-one lesson.

In the discovery stage, the researchers considered suitable to apply just one task per skill since the purpose was

to gain a general view of what the needs of the learner were. The main purpose in this stage was to make all

these tasks enticing to the learner so he could be fully engaged avoiding to discourage him due to the workload

proposed for the first phase of the investigation.

2.3.1 Discovery Stage

This phase started with a speaking task, then came the reading, listening and finally the writing one. The order

was randomly proposed to the student who gladly accepted as the tasks were executed in the participant's free

time.

In the oral task, the student was interviewed for about ten minutes by one of the researchers. The questions he

was asked were intended to find if he was good at describing routines, talking about past actions, referring to

other people in present or past and offering personal information.

Below it can be found the transcript of the interview, which was recorded while it took place. The format of the

presentation is as follows: Table 1. Transcription of the interview made to the student part 1

TIME Line TURN TRANSCRIPT

1 Teacher(T) How about you?

00:28 2 Student (St) My name is Juan Perez (Note 1), I am from Saudi Arabia. I'm 19

years old

3 T Why are you here in Southampton

4 ST You mean here in England?, because I /studied/ because I want to

study a university in England

5 T In England, What are you going to study?

6 ST I want to study, If you know the subject...physiotherapy.

7 T Why do you like that? It's difficult

1.14 8 ST Why, I think no difficult, it's not difficult.. Ahh I like it because when I

had this subject, I /can't/ work in my country. You know that

9 T What did you do yesterday?

10 ST Yesterday, I was, no sorry I went to shopping, some shopping and..

11 T Where?

12 ST In the center of Southampton

13 T Did you buy food?

elt.ccsenet.org English Language Teaching Vol. 10, No. 7; 2017 126

14 ST Yeahh a little

1:48 15 T Have you gone to another city here in London to another town?

16 ST Yeah, I went to London, ...yeahh, I was in London

17 T Any other place around. Like have you been in another place here?

18 ST Like Reading, Exeter, Winchester... And...Manchester...

19 T What are you doing during the afternoon?

2:23 20 ST Yeahh...in the afternoon, I have class

21 T Again?

22 ST In the afternoon I have class

23 T Here?

24 ST In this school

25 T Every day..

26 Yeahh everyday

27 T From what time to what time?

28 ST The class begin at 2 o'clock. Finish...... beginning 2 o'clock.....from

2 o'clock to ehh half past three.

2:56 29 T Wow...what do your parents do? Your mother.. What is her

profession?

3:00 30 ST He's not in England... she not sorry in England

31 T Where is she?

32 ST In my country

33 T What does she do

34 ST Yes she.. Teach... she's teacher at school.. Like you I think

35 T In primary or secondary?

36 ST No.. In /brimary/

3:23 37 T And your father?

38 St No...my father.. I think.. You know.. .. Electrical engineers.. But now

he is /rettrid/ yeahh. Now is working.. He like free works like this ..Sometimes buy.. Pay a house and then sell, pay a house and sell.. Like this yeahh like this ...buy car sell car...(words in Arabic). Like this.

3:56 39 T What does your father like? Like what does he like to do?, his hobbies

40 ST I think my father ... old man.. I think.. Not.. He doesn't have any

hobby at all....like...

41 T And your mum?

42 ST Yeahh..The same... but my mum...she's home.. .ahh... I can doctor..

43 T You are only child? Or do you have any..

44 ST Yeah. Yeahh. I'm one.. I'm only child, but I have a new brother..

Newborn.. Yeahh

4:43 45 T Yeahh little one?

46 ST This is one.. Yeahh

47 T Your mum.. Wow.. How old is he?

48 ST Yeahhh I think now he's aaa 18.. 8 months. I think so

elt.ccsenet.org English Language Teaching Vol. 10, No. 7; 2017 127

49 T 8 months

4.58 50 ST 8 months, but I never see, never see

51 T Only pictures

52 ST Just the picture

5:08 53 T Nice...What will you do tomorrow.. Or during the class tomorrow

you're coming to class, right!, during the weekend

5:16 54 ST Weekend...Sometimes, I go to center, to the city center, sometimes

stay at home, studying, yeahhh sometimes but every weekend, I should call to my father or my family.. Every weekend.. Note 1: Real name was changed for ethical purposes. Table 2. Transcription of the interview made to the student part 2

TIME Line TURN TRANSCRIPT

9:07 55 ST The cover, they wear cover because this is me... name is /Nikap/ This

is.. .ehh they are wearing because this my religion Islam...yeah. My religion.. tell us about this thing. Every woman you should.. they must not ..should .yeah should wear this/ cover nikap/ this cover

9:36 56 T Why?

57 ST This is my religion, no reason. No no religion

58 T And the clothes? Also

59 ST Yeahh? The clothes also

60 T They Shouldn't wear...

10:04 61 ST Nikep .. and the..You know... you know what's the name of this clothes

/abaia/...

10:18 62 T ABIAH.. in Arabic..

63 ST Yeahh in my country in Arabic.

Concerning, the reading skill, the Arabic student was asked to read an article about football (See Appendix 3).

The reason why the researchers chose this sport was that during the interview, the student manifested to like

football. Another reason to present a theme of the student´s interest was that it would be more pleasant for him to

work on the task.

The reading task required focusing on two main aspects; one was the gist and the other was to find some specific

information given in the text. The reading was about football, it presented a mix of different grammar tenses and

the vocabulary included in it was appropriate for the level of the student. The text was long but comprehensible

and it was perceived in the interview that the student could deal with extensive texts. This task had 5 questions;

the first one was to assess if the student could read for the gist and the other four questions were about finding

specific information within the text.

Regarding the listening task, it consisted of a two-minute video about natural physiotherapy treatments. The

video was chosen because the student had manifested to be interested in this field when he was interviewed. Five

questions were formulated after the student watched the video. One of them was asked to see if he could get the

main idea of the video and the other four to check if he could get specific information from it. The material

presented for this task was fair, bearing in mid his level and interests.

Before starting to listen, three words were chosen to be pre-taught as it was assumed that the learner would not

know their meaning. The words were: apprehensive, wonder and reach.

Afterwards, the student watched and listened to the video twice and in between he spent some time writing the

answers he recalled. The inquiries mentioned above are shown in Appendix 1. elt.ccsenet.org English Language Teaching Vol. 10, No. 7; 2017 128

The last task proposed for the target student in the discovery stage, was to write a few lines describing his past

life in his hometown and his life while living in London. Sixty minutes were given to the student to complete the

assignment. Neither the dictionary, nor the smartphone were allowed during this task. He was inside a classroom

with one of the researchers who monitored his performance during the writing activity.

The final product of this writing task can be seen in Appendix 2. Find in red and black all the corrections made

after the task was completed. SPAG (Spelling, Punctuation, and Grammar) mistakes were found.

3. Action Plan

The second part of this research proposed an action plan which is presented in this article through a chart where

the researchers clearly state the student´s wants and needs. There is another chart which states the context of the

language, the register, the skills and the suggested structure, functions and notions to be taught.

3.1 Functions

In terms of functions, the participant used various functions of the language in the four tasks presented. As

follows: Giving opinions: like in the case when he said that physiotherapy was easy

Predicting: when he needed to say how his life was going to be when he was working on the writing task.

Describing: when he wrote about his life now and the way how his life was in the past. Expressing wishes: when he said, he wanted to study in England.

3.2 General use

The student can understand questions and vocabulary related to areas on immediate personal relevance. He can

give basic personal and family information. He can catch questions in different grammar tenses, and attempt to

answer them using basic structures. Also, the participant can briefly give reasons and explanations.

The student is not accurate but he tries to be fluent. He uses a lot of time fillers to monitor himself and give

himself time to think.

Table 3. Action Plan: wants and needs

WANTS NEEDS

The student wants to learn English to become a

physiotherapist and he wants to gain more about vocabulary related to the body and muscles. He also wants to be able to write academic reports. He needs to build strong foundations of the language so he can be accurate when conveying meaning. To become a proficient user of the English language this learner needs to work harder on the development of productive skills. Table 4. Action Plan: Context, register, skills, structure, function and notion

CONTEXT (S) OF LANGUAGE ACTS

The student is a young man who attends to the English classes and goes home after that. He sometimes hangs

around with his friends but they are Arabs so he does not speak English with his friends. As a consequence, the

use of his English is limited to the English classes as well as the interaction he has with his host family.

REGISTER

Currently, The student is not working; He just studies; for this reason, he needs to know when and how to use

formal and informal language, taking into account the different situations he could be in.

SKILLS

The student needs to develop the four language skills for his future intentions to study a subject in England. To

start with, speaking and writing which are the productive skills will be emphasized in the first lesson of the

syllabus to be proposed.

STRUCTURE, FUNCTION AND NOTION:

The student needs a clear review of simple grammar tenses in present and past. He needs to talk about

experiences and talk about his routine. elt.ccsenet.org English Language Teaching Vol. 10, No. 7; 2017 129

Time available

5 different lessons of 60 minutes were carried out

After the action plan was designed, the research team executed the lessons and the findings after applying them

are described below:

3.3 Aim

The aim of this lesson was to help the student learn how to talk about his past experiences using regular verbs,

and at the same time give him some controlled practice of the teaching points using his previous experience in

Makah as a context.

3.4 Lesson Plans

To look at sample of the lesson plan applied see Appendix 4.

4. Data Analysis

4.1 Findings of the Discovery Stage

In the following lines a contrastive analysis of each of the tasks proposed in the four skills will be presented.

This examination was made to the light of the Error Analysis (EA) theory. The main purpose of this examination

was to perceive the points of difficulty that occurred through a systematic study of the learner's errors revealing

the learner's difficulties to finally make a proposal about a possible strategy to overcome the difficulties. It is

relevant to mention that the main variance from error and mistakes is that the former is caused due to the

knowledge of the language and the other because the there is a slip of the tongue but the learner might correct it

when there is awareness of it. For the purposes of this study the highlighted issues in the analysis are considered

errors.

In the speaking analysis, the scrutiny was made in terms of phonology, structure and lexis. The layout to present

the analysis contains six ranks: the type of error, the error as such, the correction, the analysis and source, and

finally a suggested treatment for the error. The following table presents the findings in detail.

4.1.1 Speaking Analysis

Table 5. Speaking skill analysis regarding phonology

Type of error: Phonology

Error: (line 35 )/ braᢛᦱmᖡri /brimary

Correction: / praᢛᦱmᖡri /primary

Analysis: Both are allophonic sounds and tend to be used randomly.

Origin: Interference with the native language

Treatment: Reinforce the both sounds to make distinction of them with the IPA.

Type of error: Phonology

Error: (line 8) /kaent/

Correction: /kaen / Can positive form

Analysis: the learner is placing a plosive alveolar sound instead of a nasal alveolar one. Origin: Arabic speaker often over pronounce post-vocalic sounds.

Treatment: IPA, modelling

Type of error: Phonology

Error: (line 38) /rrᖡtԥr/ reter

Correction: / rᢛ᦮taᢛrd / retired

Analysis: the learner did not pronounce the /r/ instead he used the /rr/ sound Origin: Arabic speaker often over pronounce post-vocalic sounds.

Treatment: IPA, modelling

elt.ccsenet.org English Language Teaching Vol. 10, No. 7; 2017 130

After analysing the interview, it could be found that this student had an inconvenient with the sound /p/ instead

of using this sound, he used the /b/ sound. The problem with this sound has to do with the fact that the Arabic

people use the letter "P" but the sound is actually /b/. Other sounds such as: the one of the verb can probably was

not learnt appropriately and he pronounced it as "can't". Some other sounds like the one of the word-retired need

some modelling and drilling. Table 6. Speaking skill analysis regarding structure

Type of error: Structure

Error: (line 8) no difficult

Correction: it's not difficult

Analysis: The learner used a general "no"

Origin: Arabic language does not have auxiliaries to make the negative form they just have a particle before the

verb

Treatment: review the verb to be in negative form

Type of error: Structure

Error: (line 8) when I had this subject

Correction: when I study this subject

Analysis: The learner confuses the present simple with past simple

Origin: The U shape learning

Treatment: reinforce grammar structures through a possible given contextquotesdbs_dbs17.pdfusesText_23

[PDF] [PDF] How Does the First Language Have an Influence on - ERIC

[PDF] First Language Acquisition - Skemman

[PDF] First Language Acquisition and Classroom Language Learning

First Steps in Language Acquisition - ScienceDirectcom

First Language Acquisition as a Guide for - ScienceDirectcom

[PDF] Children First Language Acquisition At Age 1-3 - IOSR Journal

[PDF] How Does the First Language Have an Influence on - ERIC

English Language Teaching; Vol. 10, No. 7; 2017

ISSN 1916-4742 E-ISSN 1916-4750

Yanilis Romero

Tel: 301-735-7916. E-mail: miltonpama@gmail.com

Abstract

1. Introduction

England. Students' age range from 15 to 20.

1.1 How Does the First Language Have an Influence over the Learning of a New Language?

62). In this sense, we cannot separate the study of language and language learning from culture and the context

1.2 Contrastive Analysis

2. Methodology

2.1 The Case Study

2.2 Participants

2.3 Data Collection

2.3.1 Discovery Stage

TIME Line TURN TRANSCRIPT

1 Teacher(T) How about you?

00:28 2 Student (St) My name is Juan Perez (Note 1), I am from Saudi Arabia. I'm 19

3 T Why are you here in Southampton

4 ST You mean here in England?, because I /studied/ because I want to

5 T In England, What are you going to study?

6 ST I want to study, If you know the subject...physiotherapy.

7 T Why do you like that? It's difficult

1.14 8 ST Why, I think no difficult, it's not difficult.. Ahh I like it because when I

9 T What did you do yesterday?

10 ST Yesterday, I was, no sorry I went to shopping, some shopping and..

11 T Where?

12 ST In the center of Southampton

13 T Did you buy food?

14 ST Yeahh a little

1:48 15 T Have you gone to another city here in London to another town?

16 ST Yeah, I went to London, ...yeahh, I was in London

17 T Any other place around. Like have you been in another place here?

18 ST Like Reading, Exeter, Winchester... And...Manchester...

19 T What are you doing during the afternoon?

2:23 20 ST Yeahh...in the afternoon, I have class

21 T Again?

22 ST In the afternoon I have class

23 T Here?

24 ST In this school

25 T Every day..

26 Yeahh everyday

27 T From what time to what time?

28 ST The class begin at 2 o'clock. Finish...... beginning 2 o'clock.....from

2 o'clock to ehh half past three.

2:56 29 T Wow...what do your parents do? Your mother.. What is her

3:00 30 ST He's not in England... she not sorry in England

31 T Where is she?

32 ST In my country

33 T What does she do

34 ST Yes she.. Teach... she's teacher at school.. Like you I think

35 T In primary or secondary?

36 ST No.. In /brimary/

3:23 37 T And your father?

38 St No...my father.. I think.. You know.. .. Electrical engineers.. But now

3:56 39 T What does your father like? Like what does he like to do?, his hobbies

40 ST I think my father ... old man.. I think.. Not.. He doesn't have any

41 T And your mum?

42 ST Yeahh..The same... but my mum...she's home.. .ahh... I can doctor..

43 T You are only child? Or do you have any..

44 ST Yeah. Yeahh. I'm one.. I'm only child, but I have a new brother..

Newborn.. Yeahh

4:43 45 T Yeahh little one?

46 ST This is one.. Yeahh

47 T Your mum.. Wow.. How old is he?

48 ST Yeahhh I think now he's aaa 18.. 8 months. I think so

49 T 8 months

4.58 50 ST 8 months, but I never see, never see

51 T Only pictures

52 ST Just the picture

5:08 53 T Nice...What will you do tomorrow.. Or during the class tomorrow

5:16 54 ST Weekend...Sometimes, I go to center, to the city center, sometimes

TIME Line TURN TRANSCRIPT